THIRD SECTION
Application no. 69527/10
Elena VASILCA against Moldova
lodged on 11 November 2010
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Ms Elena Vasilca, is a Moldovan national who was born in 1965 and lives in Chişinău. She was represented before the Court by Mr I. Petcov, a lawyer practising in Chişinău.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 8 March 2008 at around 4.40 p.m. the applicant’s seventeen year old son (V.) died after falling from one of the floors in the apartment block in which he lived.
The police opened a preliminary inquiry into the causes of V.’s death, the main version being suicide.
On 8 March 2008 the investigator in charge of the case (F.) ordered a medical expert report in order to establish precisely the cause of death, the presence and origin of any injuries on V.’s body and whether there was any trace of alcohol or narcotic drugs in his blood. That report was finished on 10 March 2008 and found that V. had died from severe injuries caused by his fall; no traces of alcohol or narcotic drugs had been found in his blood.
Some fifteen persons were heard as witnesses during the following three months. Some of them mentioned that V. had talked to two men on the day of his death. One witness stated that she had seen a young man and a young woman exiting the building and leaving the place in a hurry, taking a taxi shortly after V. had fallen down. The applicant also noted that her son had been contacted at his mobile phone number by persons unknown to her and that her son had been upset after these discussions. She identified his phone number and asked F. to verify who had called her son. She also noted that someone had visited her son in the evening before the incident took place and had run away when she went out to see what was going on.
On 24 March 2008 F. proposed not to initiate a criminal investigation since there was no evidence that an offence had been perpetrated, V. having committed suicide. On 4 July 2008 a prosecutor of the Ciocana prosecutor’s office decided not to initiate a criminal investigation.
The applicant challenged that decision before a superior prosecutor. She noted that witnesses had not been heard in respect of their contention that they had seen two young persons exiting the building in a hurry immediately after the incident and that no one had asked the relevant mobile phone company to provide information about the phone calls made to her son prior to his death. Moreover, two witnesses had claimed that they had seen V. in a nearby shop hours prior to his death and that he had fainted there, having been taken away by two unidentified young men.
On 18 August 2008 a supervising prosecutor annulled the decision of 4 July 2008 as taken prematurely and without verifying other possible causes of death such as murder by pushing V. from above or provoking him to commit suicide. The investigator was ordered to hear the applicant and the witnesses identified by her.
Following that date, the preliminary inquiry was extended on many occasions at the request of investigator F. On 12 December 2008 F. proposed not to initiate an investigation, but that proposal was rejected as premature by the prosecutor. F. made similar proposals on 4 February and 29 April 2009 and a prosecutor accepted both times not to initiate an investigation. Each time a supervising prosecutor found the decision premature.
On 17 September 2009 the investigating judge of the Ciocana District Court annulled the prosecutor’s decision not to initiate a criminal investigation, finding that the preliminary inquiry conducted before that date had been superficial and “with unexplained omissions”. The investigating authority had not established the place from which V. had jumped or had been pushed down and from which height, a number of actions requested by the investigator to be made by various authorities had not been fully carried out. Similarly, the indications made by the prosecutor to the investigator had not been fully followed. Moreover, during the medical expert report of V.’s body the applicant’s rights as an aggrieved party had not been secured since she had not been allowed to ask the expert any questions or to ask for another expert or commission of experts to examine V.’s body, as she had the right to do under applicable legislation.
Having re-examined the case, 5 November 2009 investigator F. proposed to the prosecutor not to initiate a criminal investigation. This was refused on 12 November 2009.
On 8 December 2009 the applicant complained to the Ciocana prosecutor’s office of the delays in the investigating authority’s activity in respect of her son’s case. She received no reply.
After that date the investigator proposed to the prosecutor not to initiate a criminal investigation on 29 December 2009 and 19 April 2010, but each time the prosecutor sent the case for re-examination.
On 23 June 2010 the investigator proposed to the prosecutor not to initiate a criminal investigation. On 5 July 2010 a prosecutor from the Ciocana prosecutor’s office accepted the proposal since there was no evidence confirming that V. had been killed or provoked to commit suicide.
On 20 August 2010 the Ciocana District Court rejected the applicant’s complaint as unfounded. That decision was final.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains under Article 2 of the Convention that there has been no effective investigation into her son’s death and that the inquiry conducted by the authorities was not prompt, while her rights as an aggrieved party were not observed.
QUESTION
Did the investigation in respect of the applicant’s son’s death comply with the requirements under Article 2 of the Convention? In particular, was that investigation conducted promptly and free of deficiencies capable of undermining the authorities’ ability to establish the cause of the victim’s death and to identify the perpetrator or perpetrators, if any (see Hasan Çalışkan and Others v. Turkey, no. 13094/02, § 51 et seq., 27 May 2008 and Anusca v. Moldova, no. 24034/07, 18 May 2010)?
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